DTGEN Function

Returns a date/time array variable beginning with a specified date and incremented by a specified amount.

NOTE: Only one keyword can be specified at a time. You cannot, for example, specify both years and months in a single DTGEN call. But if you need to add, for example, one day and one hour, you can simply add 25 hours.

Discussion

Each value in the result is offset from the previous value by the amount specified with a keyword.

DTGEN lets you generate date and time data that match a particular dataset. For example, if you have gathered data at regular intervals, but do not have time stamps in your dataset, you can use DTGEN to generate date and time data that corresponds to your data-gathering intervals.

Only whole numbers (including zero) can be used with the keywords to specify the offset between dates and times. Therefore, the smallest unit by which generated dates can be offset is one second. If no keyword is specified, the default offset is one day.

Example 1

This example shows how to generate an array of date/time structures for consecutive years.

date1 = TODAY()

; Create a date/time variable containing the current date.

date2 = DTGEN(date1, 4, /Year)

; Use DTGEN to create a new date/time variable containing four 
; date/time values. The four date/time values represent four 
; consecutive years with identical months, days, and times.

PRINT, date2

{ 1992 3 26 6 28 50.0000 87487.270 0}
{ 1993 3 26 6 28 50.0000 87852.270 0}
{ 1994 3 26 6 28 50.0000 88217.270 0}
{ 1995 3 26 6 28 50.0000 88582.270 0}

Example 2

The second example shows how to create an array containing date/time structures for every other month of a year.

date = VAR_TO_DT(1992, 1, 1)

; Create a date/time variable for January, 1992.

date1 = DTGEN(date, 6, Month=2)

; Create an array variable containing date/time data for every other
; month of the year 1992.

PRINT, date1

{ 1992 1 1 0 0 0.00000 87402.000 0}
{ 1992 3 1 0 0 0.00000 87462.000 0}
{ 1992 5 1 0 0 0.00000 87523.000 0}
{ 1992 7 1 0 0 0.00000 87584.000 0}
{ 1992 9 1 0 0 0.00000 87646.000 0}
{ 1992 11 1 0 0 0.00000 87707.000 0}

DTGEN Function

Usage

Input Parameters

Returned Value

Keywords

Discussion

Example 1

Example 2

See Also